It’s Time to Get Serious About Leadership Development

I’ve been working with organizations to help them develop their leaders for over 30 years. Leadership development is my life’s work and the reason our company exists. Developing leaders should be a really great business because the need for better leaders is clear to most everyone in many ways. But there is a big gap between organizations acknowledging a need and acting to change the outcome.

This article is about that gap – between knowing something and acting on it. Between wanting something to be better and doing what it takes to make that happen.

The need for more effective leadership has never been greater. I will recite some reasons because you may need to be reminded…

• The world is more complicated, interconnected, and complex than ever.
• The desire and need for productivity has never been higher.
• The what’s, where’s and when’s of work have changed (forever).
• The technological changes that are coming will impact work greatly (even if we don’t know what those things all look like yet).
• The policies and approaches that used to work, aren’t working any more.
• People are changing jobs – more frequently than ever.

I could list more items, and you likely have some organizationally specific ones you could add too.

Each of these facts present or point to a leadership issue/challenge/opportunity.

But most organizations think about them as strategic challenges or problems to be solved … rather than a leadership development issue.

Ask yourself this:

If we had more proficient and confident leaders, would we be better able to reduce or eliminate the negative impact of these on our results?

The answer is 100% yes.

And these challenges aren’t going away either. The world and work are not going to get easier or less complicated. It isn’t going back to the way it used to be (and your leaders weren’t all succeeding then anyway).

Waiting, wishing and hoping isn’t a strategy.

Notice that everything you have read is about bottom-line organizational impact. We can call leadership a set of soft or people or even human skills – but that is only part of the story. When you only think about leadership development in that way, you undersell its value and strategic importance.

This is not a soft topic, nor is it simply “nice-to-have” better leaders. It is a business imperative and competitive advantage. The good news is that your competitors have the same leadership development gap that you do. So, when you strategically address it, you will build a competitive advantage faster than you can imagine.

Why Leadership Development Doesn’t Happen

Lots of organizations say they want better leaders. But saying it doesn’t make it true.

There are reasons for the conundrum (that we know we need better leaders but aren’t really developing them).

• We’ve invested but it didn’t work. This is a big (and understandable) reason! Sometimes the disappointment is so great after one try, organizations never try again. More often, the problem I see is organizations deciding to “try again” (because of the reasons above), then doing the same things they’ve done before. Just reading that makes it clear you need to try something new.
• We’ve already trained them. That’s great. But even if what you provided did work, do you think that in a changing world your leaders don’t need new ideas and support for the challenges they face now?
• We don’t have the time. Your leaders are busy, I get it. But you make time to hire new people when people leave (because of poor leadership), don’t you? Leadership development is like any other important activity - it will only happen when it is a priority.
• We don’t have the money. Money and budgets are limited in almost every organization, but again, what are you prioritizing? There is almost always a budget for the most important things. What you invest in changes your future. What investments could pay bigger dividends than more effective leaders, and how better leadership changes the productivity and results of every team member?
• We don’t have people to lead the programming. Having talent to create and lead your leadership development programming can be a challenge – but of all the reasons on this list, this is easy to overcome. You can hire that talent internally or externally.

These are reasons and worth noting, but they aren’t reason to throw up our hands and do nothing. None need to be excuses. Since excuses don’t help, how do we change the script?

Here’s the bottom line: if you want better results on nearly any measure of organizational success and results, leadership skills and habits are your biggest levers.

What Now – How Should We Start?

I’m saying “start” even for those of you that have programming and processes in place, because if you are thrilled with how leadership development is working in your organization, you likely aren’t still reading.

Let’s start here. If too many of your leaders aren’t doing what you need them to do, ask these questions first:

• Do they know what you want and need? If they don’t know what is expected of them as leaders, how can they deliver? If you can’t answer this question, this is where you must start. If this is clear to you, make sure your leadership expectations are clear to all your leaders, at all levels.
• Can they do what you want and need? Once expectations are clear, there are plenty of ways to help people build skills. But until they see why building them is in their best interest, they might “go to the workshop” or “watch the video” (or do any of 50 other things), but it won’t matter beyond checking the box for the activity.
• Do they get coaching on those expectations? If there is no follow-up or coaching on what is expected, how likely will they change their behavior and apply new skills? How likely or easy is it for you to change without follow-up and support?
• Do we let current behavior continue? If you allow old, ineffective or outdated approaches to continue, you will never get the impact you want from your leadership development investments.

If you don’t like your answers to one or more of these questions, you need to reconsider the role of, and approach to, leadership development. And you can’t wait for smooth sailing, no political unrest or economic certainty. History tells us that when we look back later retreating is rarely a better answer than moving forward boldly on the right issues.

Developing your leaders is one of those right issues.

The world has changed and is changing. If you are leading the same way they did five years ago, I guarantee you have big gaps in your leadership effectiveness.

Investments are necessary, but they aren’t all monetary. Investment of time and organizational talent are needed too.

If you know you need to support your leaders, so you can get the business results you need, let’s talk.

We can help you:

• Review what you are doing.
• Ask you questions that will give you a new perspective.
• Explore the variety of ways we might be able to help you help your leaders grow.

We’d love to have that conversation with you.

After all, that’s why we are here.